The Secret Life of the Girls' Bathroom
by anonfanficaccount
Summary: In the middle of a live sketch, Sonny finds Chad hiding in a bathroom stall on stage. In his underwear.
1. Chapter 1

"Welcome back to So Random!"

The announcement boomed across the stage, accompanied by the usual theme music. Grady and Nico entered downstage right, dressed as girls, through the 'door' of the girl's bathroom set.

"Oh. My. GAWD. Did you see Jessica Parker today?" Grady exclaimed in his best falsetto.

"Yeah, she-" Nico was interrupted as I, dressed as Jessica Parker made my entrance and scurried into the furthest of the four stalls. I faced the door and listened for my next cue. There was a small movement behind me.

I glanced towards it and did a double take. Chad was sitting curled up on the toilet seat. In his underwear. He shrugged helplessly.

"Hey Sonny," he said, as nonchalant as a person about to be caught hiding on a live TV show in their boxers could possibly be.

Many thoughts cycled through my mind. I covered my radio-mic and went with the most appropriate of them.

"What the fuck Chad?" I hissed, under the laughter of the audience.

"I… um…" he mumbled staring at the ground. "This is your fault Monroe."

"My fault!? I haven't seen you all day."

"Yeah, your fault!"

"Really Chad, really?"

There were flushes and then cheers as Tawni and Zora, playing the bad girls with the hearts of gold, exited the stalls next to us.

"Whatever. You have about two minutes to get from this stall to the one at the other end without anyone noticing you. I gotta go."

There was the sound of another flush and I left the stall, careful not to open the door too far and expose Chad to the world. I wanted to keep that vision to myself for as long as possible.

I scurried to the sinks, my mind only half on acting like a nerd, the other half on Chad's glorious abs.

"Oh. My. GAWD. Jasmine! Gurl," Nico started.

"It's Jessica actually," I mumbled, to the sound of laughter from the audience. Nico getting everyone's name wrong was a running gag.

The inspiration for that joke's head appeared over the top of the stall. Alarmed, I made 'go away' eyes at him, and tried to will him to go under the stall walls, rather than over them. He clearly misunderstood and looked flattered for a moment, seemed to realize he was seconds away from being caught and ducked back down. I breathed again. Luckily, my character was more of a nervous looking prop piece in this anyway.

I waited anxiously as Grady and Nico got what was coming to them and stormed offstage crying hysterically.

Zora and Tawni began to deliver their lines, while sizing me up.

All of a sudden, apparently of its own accord, the door to the second closest cubicle swung open with a bang. Everyone stopped for half a second to watch it. I froze. Chad showing up in his underwear now would make no sense with this sketch and ruin the show. It probably would be funny though.

He wasn't inside. I tried not to show my relief, or my little bit of disappointment – after all, it probably would make it our highest rated episode of all time. Fortunately, Tawni and Zora were professionals and soldiered on.

Tawni gave me a dress and a snarky comment. Time for a makeover. You know, maybe this sketch was a bit of a cliché. I waltzed to the closest stall, opened the door a crack and slid inside, only a little tempted to expose Chad.

I threw the dress at him, pulled the sweater vest off over my head and dropped my pants to the floor – leaving me in a bra and panties. Desperately trying not to laugh out loud at his gobsmacked expression, I grabbed the dress off of him, and slid it on. I motioned at him and he quickly did up the zipper. His fingers accidentally brushed the small of my back and the skin tingled. There was a weird twisty sensation somewhere around my navel.

Ignoring it and him, I grinned, and exited less than ten seconds after I'd entered.

Back by the sinks, all that was left was for Jessica to be accepted as one of the gang and the bad girls to do their team handshake. We headed back to the stalls, and with the slamming of three doors, the sketch was over.

The stage lights went dark, and there was a gentle shudder as the set began to be rolled away, myself and Chad still inside.

Chad stood up. We were standing uncomfortably close.

"Back in a minute," I whispered.

I just about heard him tell me to hurry as I fled for my sanity across the still moving set.

My mind whirled as I headed for Nico and Grady's dressing room. Mostly I just thought about his abs though. And his eyes. His abs and his eyes. And his butt. His abs and his eyes and his butt. And his- I shook myself out of it. Now was not the time. There wasn't going to be a time. Well, never would be the time. Never in a million billion years would I, Sonny Monroe, think about Chad Dylan Cooper's abs. Or his eyes. Or his butt. But really not about his abs. Definitely not. Did he have to make it so difficult though?

I skidded 'round the corner, stumbled through the door, and flicked on the lights to Grady and Nico's dressing room. I was hit with an overwhelming smell of boy. A gaming system took up at least half the floorspace. Half eaten burritos and slices of pizza were scattered around the tables. I picked my way around the hoodies and comic books that were flung across the floor.

Reaching into Nico's closet, I grabbed the first things that came to hand; a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. I'm pretty sure I'd never seen Chad in anything so casual. I smiled as I raced back to the stage. It would be a new experience for him then.

Back on the soundstage, I ducked behind a giant slide from the playground sketch to hide from the lighting guy. Greg, I think his name was. He's new.

I didn't have a lot of time before I had to be on for the signoff, so I just tossed the clothes over the top of the cubicle door and kept going. I swear I heard a "thanks". Must have been my imagination. Chad Dylan Cooper doesn't thank people.

"Sonny! Where were you?" Tawni whisper-shouted as I slid into place just in time.

"Later," I mouthed as the curtain swung back to reveal an over-enthusiastic audience. I sometimes kind of wonder what it would be like to do ordinary stand-up comedy – to people who weren't already fans.

"Well, that's our show everybody! Goodnight," Zora shouted over thunderous applause. That never got old. This episode seemed to have gone down particularly well.

"Annnd we're off. Good job everybody," called the stage manager. The house lights flickered on, illuminating the audience and backstage.

I glanced off to the side. Chad stood watching in the wings, still in Nico's clothes. He saw me looking and scurried off. Not like I cared anyway.

My castmates and Marshall were clustered on the stage, doing their usual post-show comparing notes.

"That banana peel joke went down well," I said to Grady.

"Yeah, it was really good. What about that toilet door?" Nico asked. "The noise nearly ruined the sketch."

"The sound guys handled it well, I think. Things like that are why we have the eight-second delay," Marshall commented. "I'll talk to set design and see can we get it sorted. We might reuse the set someday. Anyone see what happened to it?"

I shook my head violently. No one must ever know.

"Icecream?" I loudly asked the assembled masses.

"Icecream!" everyone responded, and we charged off to the cafeteria as a group, chattering and gathering crew member and extras as we went.

"So," said Tawni, "Where did you disappear to earlier?"

I cleared my throat.

"You were great. That 'Secret Life of the Girls' Bathroom' sketch was hilarious," I told her as we walked. With Tawni, if in doubt, flattery will get you everywhere. Ew. You know what I mean.

"Amn't I always? But I thought it was a little flat. Anyway, don't change the subject," she replied, flipping her hair.

"It was definitely funnier than you think," I smiled, mostly at myself.

We headed past the turn off to the dressing rooms, and I glimpsed Chad hanging around outside ours.

"I'll catch up," I said.

She stared after me for a second, then followed on with the others.


	2. Chapter 2

I walked down the corridor towards Chad.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him, pretending to be annoyed. I mean, I probably would be annoyed in a minute, so it wasn't much of stretch.

He looked taken aback. Damn. Those puppy baby blues were killing me. I opened the door to my dressing room. He brightened up and followed me inside.

As soon as the door swung shut he said, "I know your secret."

"My secret?" I replied, totally nonplussed. I didn't have a secret. At least, I didn't know of any.

He leaned back cockily against the door, crossing his legs.

"You like me."

"I can't stand you Chad."

"Nope. I have proof," he smiled.

Proof? I wracked my brains, wondering what on earth I had done that would give him that idea. I mean, he did have nice abs. And eyes. And glutes of steel. But he was also a jerk. Who had nice abs, and eyes…

"What proof?" I asked, quickly adding, "Not that it's true."

"You helped me out," he said smugly.

"So? You would have ruined the sketch," I had no idea where this was going.

"You told me to get to the other stall. The one you were going to strip in."

"Yeah, so? Zora and Twani were going to use the other ones. You had to get out of there, they might have accidentally let on." As I said this, it dawned on me. No – he didn't think –

"There were four stalls Sonny." His eyes glittered triumphantly.

"Psh... Um… Yeah… But…" I stammered, trying to give myself time to think. Why had I done that again?

"No no, no need to make excuses now," he said. "You totally want me. Just the sight of my delicious abs -"

Stupid abs.

"Your abs mean nothing to me," I said, desperately trying to keep my voice steady.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Fine," he said, pulling Nico's hoodie off over his head, and revealing his glorious physique. Damn. He was still wrong though. I didn't like him or want him. He just had pretty abs.

"Mea-" My voice caught in my throat. I cleared it. "Means nothing to me," I said, trying not stare at them.

He smirked, bringing my attention back to his eyes. His icy blue, captivating eyes.

"What were you doing there anyway?" I asked, trying to distract him. Surprisingly, it seemed to work.

"I… Um… The coffee incident this morning."

"Right, yeah," I said, remembering. "You were standing on the set holding two cups of coffee and you stood in my way and I ran into you 'cause I was late for rehearsal."

"Right, well, I spilled the coffee all over myself, and it was boiling hot, so I took off my clothes before I burnt my beautiful body. Then the stage hand was coming, so I hid in the toilet."

Huh. That actually seemed… reasonable.

"Why didn't you shout at someone to get you clothes?" I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer. "Wait, let me guess, Chad Dylan Cooper doesn't spill stuff on himself?"

"Right. And you know I wouldn't have if you hadn't crashed into me. I wouldn't even have been over here if it wasn't for you. Like I said earlier, your fault," he accused, seeming satisfied with himself.

I stopped listening at some point during this. His abs were just so well defined.

"Sonny?"

"Chad…" I said dreamily, then caught myself. "I mean, um, what?"

My brain finally caught up on what he'd said.

"It was definitely not my fault. What were you doing with two cups of coffee on our set anyway? Was one of them for me?" I asked jokingly. His eyes fell, and I suddenly realized – one of them had been for me.

"Well, yeah, I guess," he said. Watching him squirm was fun. "We had that big fight over the parking spot the other day, and…" he trailed off.

"And…?" I lead him.

"And I don't like when you're angry with me. Proper angry angry anyway, not just annoyed angry."

His words stumbled together, and suddenly I realized maybe he wasn't a total jerk. Just mostly a jerk. With great abs. Which were right in front of me. And were beautiful.

He noticed me staring again, and stretched happily. I shook myself.

"Yup, you totally like me," he said. "You like my abs."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"I do not Chad," I said, trying to think of the least attractive thing possible. "I might as well be looking at cheese." Ha. Got him.

"Cheese?" he said, looking totally taken aback.

"Yeah, cheese," I smiled.

"Wait, you're from Wisconsin. You love cheese," he said.

Damn. He had me there.

"Wait, you remembered that. And you were bringing me coffee. And you came to the dressing room. And you took your shirt off. Again." It hit me like a tonne of bricks. "You like me Chad."

"Do not," he defended himself. It was completely unconvincing. Fireworks were going off in my brain. It all made so much sense – why he was always at _So Random_ when he claimed to hate everything to do with it. Why he was always fighting with me one minute and being sweet the next.

"Do too," I totally had him. "That's what this is about."

"No, I don't," he said.

"I'll prove it," I answered. Crap. How was I going to prove it? Then it occurred to me – two could play this game. I pulled down the zipper at the back of my dress.

"Sonny, what are you doing?" his voice was all crackly and high. Ha.

"This." I let the dress drop to the floor, standing in front of him, for the second time today, in my bra and panties. I took a moment. This was nuts. What the hell was going on? I didn't want him to think I was freaked out (which I was), so I stood up a little straighter and stared him down.

"Oh yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," I nodded, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. I could see his eyes raking up and down me, landing on my old blue bra. I wished I was wearing better underwear. Actually, why did I wish that? I didn't care what he thought of me.

"Right!" he said. He looked back at me, and, without breaking eye contact, slid Nico's pants down around his ankles. I tried to control my expression of shock as he kicked the pants off his foot and halfway across the room.

There was a noise from down the hall.

We kind of stood there staring at each other's bodies for a minute. I noticed Chad's eyes kept returning to my breasts. There was that strange navel sensation again – what was that?

"Fine, I'll find her!" Tawni's voice came from outside in the hall. Crap. The others were coming back from their icecream.

Chad and I looked each other in the eye. I could see his trepidation – this looked bad. Even though it was totally innocent. And reasonable. And innocent. Definitely innocent. Nothing going on here.

There wasn't time to convince myself. I quickly gathered the clothes from the floor, grabbed Chad by the hand and dragged him behind the curtain in my changing area. He raised an eyebrow at me, just as Tawni pushed the door open.

"Sonny?" she called.

I was about to answer, to tell her I was changing, but Chad put his finger to my lips.

I could hear Tawni dialling her phone, but there was a nearly naked Chad standing about an inch away from me with his finger on my lips, and it was a bit difficult to think clearly.

There was a loud mooing.

That was weird, I thought distractedly. Why would there be a cow here? About five seconds later – I swear, it would have been much sooner had it not been for the circumstances – I realized it was my phone.

"Huh." That was Tawni again.

Someone else knocked on the door. Chad seemed to be twirling my hair. He was clearly just trying to piss me off and make me give myself away. Well, he wasn't going to get away with that. I began to trace the shape of his stomach muscles. It was really hard hot – I mean not – to laugh as I felt his sharp intake of breath.

I heard Zora's muffled voice over the thumping of my heart.

"Find her?"

"No. Her phone is here though," Tawni replied.

"Let's try backstage," Zora suggested, and the door slammed shut as they left. Chad and I stared at each other. I giggled in relief. Chad's finger drifted away from my lips, but he left his hand by my face, cupping it gently.

"This has been a really weird day," I said, under my breath, not completely sure why I hadn't stepped away yet. Or taken my hand for where it had settled on his very firm chest. Or, you know, put on my clothes.

"Tell me about it," he smirked. But sort a nice smirk. Not his usual I'm-up-to-no-good smirk.

"So you do like me then," I said. I'm not really sure what I wanted the answer to be. If it meant doing more of this and having more navel sensations I wasn't totally against it.

"Do not," he said. His face was telling me something different. But it was Chad. This was too strange.

"Do you like me if I do this?" I asked, stepping closer, our bare skin just barely grazing against each other, the spots where we touched tingling slightly.

"No, but I think you like me," he said softly. What the hell would give him that idea? Jerk.

"Do not," I answered indignantly.

"What if I do this?" he asked, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me ever closer, until our bodies pressed firmly together. There were these furiously fluttering butterflies of hate in the pit of my stomach. I gazed angrily into his eyes. His blue blue eyes. How dare he?

"Nope. I feel absolutely nothing."

"Nothing?" he whispered, eyes searching mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek.

"Nope, definitely not not nothing."

"Wait. Was that a quadruple negative?" he asked, looking like his brain was working overtime. "So, you do feel something?"

"Not no," I answered, really confused. I wasn't even sure what I was saying. He looked as befuddled as I did. This had to be some surrealist nightmare.

His fingers trailed softly down my back, right around where he'd touched in the cubicle earlier. It tickled a bit. There was that feeling again. If it was a nightmare, I didn't really want to wake up.

There was a noise really really far away. I neither knew nor cared what it was.

"Chad?" I asked.

"Yeah?" his voice was husky in a way I'd never heard before.

"What the hell is going on?" I really hoped he knew, because since I'd walked into that stall on the set, I was totally lost. The feel of his abs pressed against my stomach, and the feel of other parts of him pressed against other parts of me were definitely not helping.

"I have no idea," he gasped, and his lips suddenly got really close to mine. I kind of wanted to meet them. With my lips. Make his lips and my lips meet. That seemed like a really good idea.

They pressed together softly.

Suddenly everything stopped. Time stood still. And the pit of my stomach exploded. There were hands – in… places. And – I realized this later – there was kissing. I think, I don't know. The next couple of minutes, or possibly years, are a bit fuzzy.

All I know is that, all of a sudden, it was a whole lot brighter. Then the world around us existed again. I registered that the curtain was open, and there was a shout of "I think I found- Oh… ooooh."


	3. Chapter 3

Chad and I sprung apart. It was slightly horrifying, or maybe very interesting, to see that the bulge in his pants – which I had been trying my best to ignore for a large part of the evening – had gotten a little bigger. We had other problems. Much more embarrassing problems. More embarrassing for me anyway, judging by the horrified look on Chad's face.

Grady stood at the curtain, mouth literally hanging open. Scattered around the rest of the room were Tawni, Nico, Zora and – for Christ's sake – Marshall. Chad and I stared at each other briefly, then awkwardly looked away to stare at everyone else in the room. They stared back. They stared at each other. There was a lot of staring going on.

Marshall was the first to move – he quickly shielded his eyes and practically ran from the room, flushing bright red and saying something about not seeing naked teenagers.

Chad moved next. He winked at me, said "I knew you liked me," flung on Nico's clothes and swaggered away.

"Hey," Nico shouted after him, "is that my hoodie?" He chased Chad out of the room.

Grady came out of our weird joint trance next.

"Come on Zora, this isn't for little kids," he said, dragging away the protesting child and slamming the door behind them.

Tawni, for her part, collapsed into a fit of hysterical giggles. She really fell to the floor and started rolling around, howling with laughter.

All of that going on felt very distant to me – like it was a play and I was in the back row with my mind on something else. Shell shocked, I pulled on a robe, and sat on Tawni's leopard print couch, staring into the distance. I knew I should be thinking about things, but I was kind of just blank. I didn't know if what had happened was good or bad. Strange though. Very strange. And interesting. I hadn't been bored, that's for sure.

Tawni managed to gasp around the laughs, "you okay?"

I nodded, and suddenly everything came tumbling out.

"You-know-Tawni, that-totally-wasn't-what-it-looked-like, I-mean, sure, Chad-has-nice-abs, but-he's-totally-a-jerk, and-I-have-no-feelings-for-him-at-all, and-I-was-just-trying-to-prove-that-and-then-it-went-way-too-far-and-then-you-guys-came-in-and-then-I-don't-know-what-happened-and-I'm-so-confused."

Tawni stopped laughing suddenly and sat up. She climbed onto the couch next to me and started rubbing my back.

"I'm going to kill him," she thundered.

Yeah, kill him. That's a good idea. That would totally fix everything… Hang on.

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"For taking advantage of you," she explained. "At first, I thought you'd gotten together, which obviously is hilarious, but now I'm going to kill him."

I nodded with her, only half listening. You know, it hadn't really been bad. Actually, it was really pretty nice. I mean Chad was a jerk. Kind of. I mean, not really though. He's been nice a few times. And those abs. I wonder what would have happened had the others not come in?

"Did he-?" she hesitated. I've never known Tawni to hesitate, so I glanced down at her. Her face was a mask of concern and fear. I finally gathered what she was trying to say. It was my turn to laugh as I realized what she thought.

"No Tawni, he didn't do anything wrong. Everything was… ahem… consensual." It was more than that. It had kind of felt right.

Tawni smiled in relief.

Now that I'd started laughing, it was really hard to stop. Tawni joined me. She really was right, the idea of me and Chad together was hilarious. I'd never heard of anything so preposterous. We couldn't even be in the same room without arguing. Even though he could be really sweet sometimes.

We laughed so hard my stomach muscles started to hurt. The same muscles that had been up against Chad's muscles only a few minutes ago. Laughing with the same mouth that had been touching Chad's. Not kissing Chad's. Just touching it. A little mouth on mouth touching. But no kissing though.

I slumped backwards across the couch. Who was I trying to convince? Tawni mirrored me. We lay, half on, half off, as the giggles slowly died away.

She turned to face me and propped herself up on her elbow, "So really, what's going on?"

Without looking, I shrugged. "I have no idea. We were arguing, and he said I liked him, which is obviously nuts then he took his shirt off to prove it."

Tawni looked confused. "Okay. I guess."

"And then I said he looked like cheese, and he said that I love cheese, so I had to take off my dress to distract him."

"Uh huh," she nodded, sounding unconvinced.

"So, then he took off his pants because I took of my dress. We heard you in the hall, and I realized it would have looked like we were gonna…"

"It would have."

"So, we hid in the closet."

"Okay, I guess that explains the nudity in the closet, if you're totally insane. Why the kissing?" She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"Shut up," I groaned. "It wasn't real kissing."

"It wasn't?"

"No."

"Looked pretty real to me."

"Ugh. It wasn't though. He touched my lips to make me be quiet, so I touched his abs to get back at him. And then his face was really close to mine…"

"And…?" Tawni prompted.

I shrugged. "I had to."

She looked at me.

"Obviously, I had to, to prove that I didn't want to more than he didn't want to." Listening to the sentence spew out of my mouth, I realized how ridiculous it sounded.

Tawni looked amused. "So, you guys got naked and kissed to prove to each other that you didn't want to get naked and kiss?"

"Exactly." I brightened up. See, that made total sense.

"Do you?"

It was my turn to be confused. "Do I what?"

"You're a moron," she said, throwing Puddy Twoshoes junior at me. "Do you like him?"

"I don't know," I said. It was the truth. I think. "I mean he's really hot. And he drives me nuts. And he can be really sweet and… I don't know."

Tawni smiled, "Yes, you do."

Abort, abort! I glanced around the room, suddenly desperate to be anywhere else. My eyes fell on this little plastic cheese toy with arms and legs that my best friend had given me before I'd left, to remind me of home. It was smiling and had blue eyes. I hadn't noticed that before.

Something Chad had said earlier played through my head.

It hit me. How could I possibly have been so stupid?

I ran out the door, kind of hoping Tawni would stop me. She didn't. I had to find Chad.


	4. Chapter 4

I didn't have far to go; he was hanging around the car park, sitting on the hood of his car, like a weirdo. A really cute weirdo. I watched him for a minute, steeling my nerves. I was like eighty percent sure he felt the same way, but this was terrifying. Maybe I should just go back and deal with this tomorrow. Or the day after. Or I could just avoid Chad for the rest of my life.

He looked around. Crap. He saw me.

I walked as slowly as I possibly could towards the car. Each step was heavy and horrifying and electrifying.

"Hey," he said. I'd never seen him look so soft before. So venerable. It was a little bit adorable.

"Hey yourself."

I hopped up on the hood next to him, half expecting him to freak out and tell me to get off his baby. Instead he did something completely unexpected. He put his arm around me.

"I was waiting for you," he explained. I already knew that.

You know, this was kind of nice. It was a little cold – I was still only in my robe, but I had a warm hunky arm around me. The stars were out, and the car park was mostly empty.

"You know what's weird?" I asked.

"This entire day?" he guessed.

"No. Well, yes, absolutely, but it's weird that sitting here, like this, with you, isn't weird." My heart was thumping wildly, but it was true. It was comfortable. Plus, after all the adrenaline rush of today, I was getting used to the madness.

He pulled me a little tighter. "I know what you mean."

There was silence for a little while. We just sat, looking up at the stars.

"Sonny, I have something to tell you," he whispered.

"Yeah, me too," I said, hoping he would go first.

"I do like you," he said, fear in his voice and his eyes.

"Really? I had no idea," I teased him.

He didn't laugh. "Sonny…"

"I like you too," I said. "Like cheese." My voice caught, hoping he'd get the message.

Or maybe I was hoping he wouldn't get the message. Why the hell would I say that? This was a bad plan. We hadn't even gone on a date yet. He clearly wouldn't feel the same way. I chewed the inside of my cheek as there was a long drawn out pause. Maybe we could recover from this – he hadn't pulled away or cried or puked in disgust yet.

A thousand scenarios of how this could play out cartwheeled through my head in that second and a half. From murder-suicide to immediate babies and back again. I was startled when he spoke:

"You're from Wisconsin. You love cheese," he said. I could see the cogs turning in his brain.

This was it.

"I love you too Sonny."

There are moments in life that I just want to remember every tiny detail of. This whole evening had been bigger than most of them already, but this split second was it. If I forgot everything else that had ever happened to me, I wanted to remember this.

The cool night air, the smooth cool metal beneath me. The pressure of Chad's arm. The sounds of the parking lot and the jingling keys of the janitor locking up for the night. The stars above us, the giant billboards with our faces on them.

But, mostly, I wanted to remember the feeling. The release of all the tension that had been building up all evening – well, for a lot longer really. The warmth, emanating from Chad's words and spreading rapidly throughout my entire body. The sensation in my navel, which I was pretty sure now was an entirely Chad-related thing. The sense of well-being, like nothing could touch us ever again. Nothing could or would ever go wrong. Chad loved me.

We let it fall peaceful again. I heard the clip clop of heels as Tawni walked to her car. I could feel her eyes and her smirk on us as she started up the car. Well, she could just wait until tomorrow.

"You know," I started. "I have a question."

"Why did I not let you call out to Tawni when we were in the closet?" he finished. I nodded.

"Well," he looked a little embarrassed. "You would have had to have gotten dressed and gone with her for your stupid icecream ritual thing-"

I smacked him gently on the chest.

"Sorry, force of habit. But things were happening. Like, finally! I'd been waiting so long. I didn't want to lose my chance," he confessed. It was adorable. One day I'd tell him that the whole thing had been agonizing confusing terrifying torture for me. In the best possible way though.

Something occurred to me. It was so obvious. "You set up the whole bathroom thing. How did you know I wouldn't embarrass you in front of the entire planet?"

"Your show doesn't reach the entire planet Sonny."

I hit him again, laughing.

"You're right, if Chad Dylan Cooper was naked on it, it would."

I gave him a look, and he gave up and looked suitably ashamed.

"Sorry. I didn't set up the spilled coffee thing, but I could have figured something else out. I expected you to have another rehearsal anyway."

"Yeah, there was one on the schedule, but it got cancelled," I mused.

Chad shrugged.

"You know my schedule?" About two hours ago that would have really creeped me out. Now it gave me the warm and fuzzies.

I turned to look at him. "You know we're doing this whole relationship thing out of order. And like, really fast."

He looked back, and smiled. I'd never seen him smile like that before. And it was for me.

"Yeah," I said, mentally shaking myself. "First there was the hating, second was the nakedness, then third was the kissing, then the attraction came after that. We skipped over the liking, went straight to the loving and now…"

"Now…?"

"Now the dating," I asked hopefully, though I was pretty sure I knew what the answer would be.

"Yeah, sure. Now the dating," he agreed. "You know, I had the attraction and the liking and the loving a long time ago. Like the day I met you. I was waiting for you to figure it out."

"I know." I could see that now. He really had known what we had a long time before I did.

"Oh my Chad! I am dating the Chad Dylan Cooper! Get out!" I squealed, gently mocking him, and attempting to brush over the embarrassment of being an idiot who couldn't see what was right in front of her. He pushed my shoulder a little, then grabbed me and pulled me in for a kiss.

"Shut up Monroe," he said around my mouth.

I could totally see this working out.


End file.
